Great advice to stay with a solid vinyl liner. I do worry about fading.
As to overall take-aways to this entire ordeal:
1) When looking to renovate your pool ALWAYS ask the Pool renovator if they are doing the work themselves and not using a 3rd party sub-contractor. ONLY deal directly with the company that does the actual work. In my case, the main pool contractor talked about what they were going to do to our pool and marketed the ecoFinish process on their website but only later did I find out that they were NOT the authorized franchise dealer/installer for ecoFinish. They were in a partnership with the actual installer from out of state that had the rights for our area. Later when I had problems the main pool contractor blamed the sub-contractor and I was told that the sub-contractor blamed the prep work that the main contractor did. Of course, the ecoFinish manufacturer said their product was not at fault and that it was an installation issue. The 10 year warranty doesn't mean much when things go wrong, its always someone else fault.
2) With ecoFinish (or the other name for it - aquaBRIGHT ) , once you go with that process you have destroyed your pool for anything else other than maybe refitting it with a plastic vinyl liner. The stuff can't come off the fiberglass or the concrete. Think real hard about putting it on. I would say that goes for anything finish you are looking at doing for your renovation. Can the process be reversed if it fails? Now I need to further destroy my pool for the conversion to putting a pool liner in it. The water fittings, skimmers, drain and underwater lights all have to be modified.
3) ecoFinish / aquaBRIGHT seems to have been developed for concrete pools initially. It seems to work for those pools only with concrete. Everything I have read and now experienced would say that it does not do well with fiberglass and HAS NOT been recommended for fiberglass by numerous sources including allegedly from the manufacturer. There have been some success stories with fiberglass but you don't know if it will work for your application until its done. Something I didn't know at the time I signed the contract to have it done. One of the biggest issues is during the installation of the product holding the blow torch too close to the fiberglass with its 800 degree heat. Nothing good comes from that as you can see from my pictures in this tread of the blisters on the fiberglass.
The next phase I have to do with the pool is to try to learn everything about in-ground vinyl pool liners installed on concrete/fiberglass pools. It seems that there are issues with putting the liners on hard surface concrete floors, concrete steps in the pool, retro fitting the water fittings, skimmers, drain and underwater lights. Also, maybe drilling holes in the floor of the pool for drainage of water that could get behind the vinyl liner. This is a process that doe not seem to be a common install and I need to find someone that has lots of experience with this type of install. I welcome any lists of what needs to be done for this process from any of you......
As to overall take-aways to this entire ordeal:
1) When looking to renovate your pool ALWAYS ask the Pool renovator if they are doing the work themselves and not using a 3rd party sub-contractor. ONLY deal directly with the company that does the actual work. In my case, the main pool contractor talked about what they were going to do to our pool and marketed the ecoFinish process on their website but only later did I find out that they were NOT the authorized franchise dealer/installer for ecoFinish. They were in a partnership with the actual installer from out of state that had the rights for our area. Later when I had problems the main pool contractor blamed the sub-contractor and I was told that the sub-contractor blamed the prep work that the main contractor did. Of course, the ecoFinish manufacturer said their product was not at fault and that it was an installation issue. The 10 year warranty doesn't mean much when things go wrong, its always someone else fault.
2) With ecoFinish (or the other name for it - aquaBRIGHT ) , once you go with that process you have destroyed your pool for anything else other than maybe refitting it with a plastic vinyl liner. The stuff can't come off the fiberglass or the concrete. Think real hard about putting it on. I would say that goes for anything finish you are looking at doing for your renovation. Can the process be reversed if it fails? Now I need to further destroy my pool for the conversion to putting a pool liner in it. The water fittings, skimmers, drain and underwater lights all have to be modified.
3) ecoFinish / aquaBRIGHT seems to have been developed for concrete pools initially. It seems to work for those pools only with concrete. Everything I have read and now experienced would say that it does not do well with fiberglass and HAS NOT been recommended for fiberglass by numerous sources including allegedly from the manufacturer. There have been some success stories with fiberglass but you don't know if it will work for your application until its done. Something I didn't know at the time I signed the contract to have it done. One of the biggest issues is during the installation of the product holding the blow torch too close to the fiberglass with its 800 degree heat. Nothing good comes from that as you can see from my pictures in this tread of the blisters on the fiberglass.
The next phase I have to do with the pool is to try to learn everything about in-ground vinyl pool liners installed on concrete/fiberglass pools. It seems that there are issues with putting the liners on hard surface concrete floors, concrete steps in the pool, retro fitting the water fittings, skimmers, drain and underwater lights. Also, maybe drilling holes in the floor of the pool for drainage of water that could get behind the vinyl liner. This is a process that doe not seem to be a common install and I need to find someone that has lots of experience with this type of install. I welcome any lists of what needs to be done for this process from any of you......
